Quantitative Analysis of Russian Protests: Regional Authorities and Regions of Authority (2018–2021). Protests 2018-2021 database. A. Tokarev, M. Boiko, A. Prikhodchenko, Y. Kozlova, O. Zaharova, E. Kuznetsov, D. Alagirova.

This database presents a street protest activity across Russia in 2018-2021. The authors offer an original dataset of 4909 protests and develop Protest Activity Index for comprehensive comparison of all Russian regions. The study shows that political and, more specifically, pro-democratic protests do not make up for the majority of protests in Russia, the agenda of popular discontent being mainly concentrated around social and economic issues at the local level. Second, it is the agenda, not geographic proximity, that determines the spread of protests, and political agenda provokes faster dissemination of actions. Third, the main organizer of protests in Russia is the Communist Party and not non-systemic opposition as is often portrayed. Fourth, Moscow and Saint Petersburg lag behind at least three other Russian regions in terms of the strength of local protest activity.